Tom Bosley, Mr. Cunningham, is dead

I hereby declare that henceforth the only deaths I shall be commenting on are those of famous people who I think made pioneering or extraordinary contributions to mankind. 

(Post Mortem on Deaths of (some) famous people, The iPINIONS Journal, June 4, 2010)

I made this declaration after receiving a number of enquiries earlier this year about why I was not publishing commentaries on the deaths of famous people as much as I had in previous years. Which clearly begs the question: what pioneering or extraordinary contribution did actor Tom Bosley make to mankind?

Well, I hope you’ll forgive, or at least understand, this admittedly arbitrary and capricious assessment.  For the only reason I’m paying homage to him is that he brought such unbridled pleasure to my Mummy from 1974 to 1984 in his role as Mr. Cunningham on the ABC sitcom Happy Days.  That’s it!

Happy Days presented an idealized version of life in white America during the 1950s – rather like the idealized version of life in black America during the 1980s that The Cosby Show presented.

And even though Happy Days centered around the plain-vanilla antics of Mr. Cunningham’s son Ritchie and his super-cool friend The Fonz (think Danny Zuko from Grease), Mummy tuned in primarily to watch scenes featuring the affable but hapless Mr. Cunningham. Incidentally, to get a sense of how popular Ritchie and The Fonz were back then just think of how popular Alan and Charlie of Two and a Half Men are today….

Of course, those were the days when the entire family would gather to watch TV; not least, in our case, because we only had one TV. Thank God The Jeffersons, which presented a comical version of life in upwardly mobile black America – complete with racial stereotypes – during the 1970s, or better still Good Times, which presented a similar version of life in typically poor black America during the same time, always aired at a different time (or on a different night, as I seem to recall).

Frankly, I never got what my Mummy found so entertaining about Happy Days or, more to the point, about the role Bosley played. Moreover, where most kids loved The Fonz, I thought – even back then – that he was about as cool as The Situation (from The Jersey Shore) is sophisticated. (Did you get that? And this was especially so when I compared him to JJ “kid Dynomite” of Good Times.)

It’s noteworthy, though, that she was never too fond of the haughty and irascible Mr. Jefferson; although, I did catch her evincing a begrudging smile during his signature diatribes on a few occasions.  But I digress…

As indicated, I’m paying this tribute to Tom Bosley out of respect for the fun and joy my Mummy derived from seeing him play Mr. Cunningham for so many years.

Bosley, who was battling lung cancer, died on Tuesday after suffering heart failure. He was 83.

Farewell Mr. Cunningham